Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image capture apparatus, an image processing system, and a control method thereof.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is known to be an image processing system in which a defocus distribution of a captured image is detected and image processing for locally changing a parameter corresponding to the defocus amount is applied to the captured image.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-15754 discloses an image capture apparatus that includes an image sensor capable of generating a pair of images from which a defocus amount can be calculated, and locally adds a bokeh amount corresponding to the defocus amount to a captured image.
In the image capture apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-15754, two types (a pair) of image data generated from the outputs of photoelectric conversion units of the same type are recorded when a captured image is recorded in response to a shutter release. Accordingly, in the case of using an image sensor with a configuration including two types of photoelectric conversion units per pixel, data size to be recorded doubles as compared to the case of using a normal image sensor having one photoelectric conversion unit per pixel. Therefore, the number of images that can be captured decreases compared to the case of using the normal image sensor. Further, in the case where image processing is performed by an image processing apparatus separate from the image capture apparatus, the time for data communication between the apparatuses increases. Further, since the data size doubles, the processing load required for data processing such as calculation of the defocus amount also increases.
The same problem occurs also in the case of using a pair of sets of image data captured by a stereo camera, or a pair of sets of image data captured at different focus distances. In recent years, with an increase in the number of pixels in image sensors, there are image sensors having more than 30,000,000 pixels, and therefore increases in data size are having a greater and greater influence.